We design kitchens of all shapes and sizes for our customers in the Pittsburgh area. The most common size kitchen we see, though, is often smaller than what’s depicted in home magazines. If you have a smaller kitchen that you’d like to make appear bigger, we have ten strategies for you. Our team of experienced design consultants will work with you from your project start to completion and will find solutions for the unique challenges of your home through our Personalized Design experience.
1. Go with Light Colors
White kitchens are very trendy right now, but they offer more benefits than just being beautiful. Light colors are more reflective than dark colors and they will make your kitchen appear bigger as well as more open and airy. Light blues, greens, or pale yellows are other great colors to make your space look larger than life.
2. Implement Lines
Lines will stretch your space horizontally or vertically, depending on the pattern. You can create lines with your cabinetry, tiling, flooring, or decor. Direct the eye upward and make your kitchen appear taller with cabinetry that has vertical lines, such as with the island demonstrated below. The lines of subway tile will give the impression of a longer and taller kitchen as well.
3. Implement Reflective Materials
It’s common knowledge that mirrors and other reflective materials make a space look bigger, which is why they are often placed in bathrooms, living rooms, or hallways. Take that same mentality and apply it to your kitchen.
4. Expand the Visual Area with Glass-Paneled Cabinetry
Glass-paneled cabinetry will create unobstructed visual paths, which will make your kitchen look larger. It will also let you display your favorite dishes and treasures! If you can’t change your cabinetry just yet, you could also add clear chairs or glass pendant lights to your decor.
5. Minimize the clutter
Keep sight lines open by clearing off your countertops. Your kitchen cabinetry can include creative storage solutions to help you accomplish this. A cooking utensil drawer will eliminate the need for a kitchen caddy on your countertops. You could also have a knife-drawer installed in place of the traditional knife block set.
6. Install more lighting
The more shadows you have, the smaller the space will feel. Make your space light and bright by installing more lights. These lights can be added underneath cabinets to highlight your countertops and your work area or toe kick lights can be added at the base of your kitchen cabinetry. Lights can also be added inside glass cabinetry to illuminate its contents.
7. Hide Appliances Behind Cabinetry
Appliance cabinetry will blend your appliances in with the rest of your kitchen. This will keep your kitchen’s design congruent and sleek and help it appear larger. The photo below demonstrates how a dishwasher can be hidden behind a cabinetry panel.
8. Avoid contrast
Create a kitchen with little color difference between the space’s walls, cabinetry, tiling, countertops, and backsplash to create unobstructed visual lines that won’t make your eyes jump around. The kitchen below is a great example of this. You could also use the same material for your backsplash and countertops to blend the surfaces together.
9. Opt for an Undermount Sink and/or Single Bowl Sink
Undermount sinks sit under the countertop’s surface which hides it from view and creates a seamless view. Undermount sinks are perfect for high-traffic kitchen areas as debris on the countertops can easily be wiped into the sink. You could also opt for a sink with a single bowl to prevent the sink from dominating the working area of your countertop.
10. Install Open Shelving
If you have cabinet space to spare, consider installing open shelving. These will make your kitchen larger as they create unobstructed views, similar to glass-paneled cabinetry.
Next, tackle your small bathroom and make it look larger too. Then, get ideas on how to add personality to your kitchen design or how to make your new kitchen more efficient.
